QAnon & the Republican Party

rabbita78 said:

I know its not really FAIR to the left to point out that the world thinks the election was fake. The world seems to despise the western left and mocks them relentlessly in their media, so they could just be LYING about it out of spite.

However as a far right wing white guy - im the closest thing to an ALLY that the white left have in a world that despises white leftists. I still have a biased opinion BUT i do think the election was fake

Click to expand...

rabbita78 said:

I know its not really FAIR to the left to point out that the world thinks the election was fake. The world seems to despise the western left and mocks them relentlessly in their media, so they could just be LYING about it out of spite.

However as a far right wing white guy - im the closest thing to an ALLY that the white left have in a world that despises white leftists. I still have a biased opinion BUT i do think the election was fake

Click to expand...

UncleBuck said:

The election was real and Joe Biden won it. Thats why he is president

Click to expand...

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon coached convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for a "60 Minutes" interview months before he was arrested on child sex trafficking charges, according to a passage from a new book by Michael Wolff first reported by The New York Times' Ben Smith.

Bannon conducted more than a dozen hours of practice interviews with Epstein in 2019, aimed at making the latter appear less "creepy" ahead of the interview — which ultimately never happened — according to Wolff's forthcoming book "Too Famous." Wolff is best known for his recent trilogy of books on the Trump administration, "Fire and Fury," "Siege" and "Landslide."

Bannon, who led former President Donald Trump's first campaign and briefly served as his chief White House strategist before being fired, in part because of critical comments he made to Wolff, encouraged Epstein to speak to "60 Minutes" and recorded more than 15 hours of practice interviews with him at his Manhattan estate, according to Wolff.

Bannon interviewed Epstein while giving him tips, such as urging him to avoid looking at the camera so he doesn't come across as "stupid" and "advising him not to share his racist theories on how Black people learn," according to the report. Bannon reportedly also told Epstein to "stick to his message, which is that he is not a pedophile."

"You're engaging, you're not threatening, you're natural, you're friendly, you don't look at all creepy, you're a sympathetic figure," Bannon told Epstein toward the end of the session, according to interview transcripts obtained by Wolff.

Bannon confirmed to the Times that he had encouraged Epstein to talk to "60 Minutes" and had recorded more than 15 hours of interview footage with the deceased financier, but insisted he had "never trained anyone." Bannon told the Times he had recorded the interviews for an "previously unannounced eight- to 10-hour documentary" that was intended to show how Epstein's "perversions and depravity toward young women were part of a life that was systematically supported, encouraged and rewarded by a global establishment that dined off his money and his influence."

It's unclear how Wolff obtained the transcripts, though the author told the Times that Epstein wanted him to write a book about him.

"He wanted me to write something about him — a kind of a book — it wasn't clear why," Wolff said.

It's also unclear how Bannon and Epstein connected. Epstein, a millionaire financier who regularly socialized with wealthy businessmen, academics and even former presidents, was arrested months later on federal child sex trafficking charges. He had previously pleaded guilty to soliciting a person under 18 for prostitution in a controversial and remarkably lenient plea deal involving infamous attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr and future Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who ultimately resigned after new details of the Epstein deal were reported. Epstein later died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial. His alleged accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, has pleaded not guilty to charges that she recruited and groomed underage girls for him to sexually abuse and sometimes participated in the abuse.

It's not the first time Bannon has been linked to Epstein, a longtime friend of Trump's that the former president touted as a "terrific guy" who enjoys women "on the younger side." Page Six reported in 2018 that Bannon was seen entering Epstein's Manhattan mansion, where Epstein and Maxwell are accused of repeatedly abusing underage girls.

"Bannon needs money to bankroll his political agenda," a source told Page Six at the time, just months after Bannon had left the White House. "Epstein has plenty of money, and craves power and access."

Epstein's former butler at his Paris estate also claimed in 2019 that Bannon had stayed at Epstein's apartment in the fall of 2018, which a spokesperson for Bannon denied at the time.

New York Times columnist James Stewart also wrote in 2019 that Epstein invited him, Bannon and Wolff to a dinner in 2018 but it's unclear whether the dinner ever happened and Bannon has denied that he attended.

Wolff, who regularly writes about disgraced powerful figures, has his own extensive ties to Epstein. In 2003, the Times reported that Wolff organized a bid to buy New York magazine with investors that included Epstein as well as disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Wolff later continued to see Epstein at his office, New York reported in 2007. Wolff told the outlet at the time that he had first met Epstein in the late '90, recalling how the millionaire was followed around by "three teenage girls" who were "not his daughters." In fact, it appears that Wolff coached Epstein himself when the millionaire first faced charges before his 2005 guilty plea.

"He has never been secretive about the girls," Wolff told New York. "At one point, when his troubles began, he was talking to me and said, 'What can I say, I like young girls.' I said, 'Maybe you should say, 'I like young women.'"

Even after Epstein's 2005 conviction, Wolff continued to try to help Epstein.

"A few years ago the journalist Michael Wolff wrote a profile of him for New York magazine that was meant to 'rehabilitate' Epstein's image and would tell of all the billionaires who still, secretly, hung out with Epstein," The Daily Beast's Vicky Ward reported in 2019. "The piece had 'fact-checking' issues and never ran."

Click to expand...

This is what happens when an entire political party takes leave of reality.

On Tuesday morning, one of the most senior and important Republican senators used one of the most prominent settings in official Washington to level one of the most serious allegations possible against the commander in chief. And his charge was based on an utter fabrication.

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, used a hearing intended for sworn testimony from the secretary of state on the Afghanistan withdrawal to allege that President Biden is mentally incompetent.

Risch first devoted his opening statement to continuing the long-running Republican narrative. “We know for a fact the president of the United States is somewhat disadvantaged here in that someone is calling the shots. He can’t even speak without someone in the White House censoring it or signing off on it,” the senator claimed. “As recently as yesterday, in mid-sentence, he was cut off by someone in the White House who makes the decision that the president of the United States is not speaking correctly. … This is a puppeteer act.”

Then, as the first Republican questioner, Risch used his time to elaborate on the slander. “Somebody in the White House who has authority to press the button and stop the president, cut off the president’s speaking ability and sound," he told Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "Who is that person?”

Blinken chuckled as he replied that the loose-lipped Biden “speaks very clearly and very deliberately for himself.”

Risch was unconvinced. “Are you saying there is no one in the White House that can cut him off? Because yesterday that happened and it’s happened a number of times before that.”

Smiling, Blinken assured Risch that “there is no such person.”

Risch insisted, again, that “it happened yesterday at the Interagency Fire Center. It was widely reported. … Are you telling this committee that this does not happen, that there is no one in the White House who pushes the button and cuts him off in mid-sentence?”

After yet another back-and-forth on the matter, Blinken finally told the senator: “I really don’t know what you are referring to.”

There’s good reason for that: It didn’t happen.

The episode is worth unpacking because it shows, in miniature, how misinformation infects the Republican Party, rapidly spreads through partisan media and contaminates elected GOP leaders — who amplify and defend the falsehood, even when it’s shown to be wrong. This is how lies are born.

(In this case, it wasn’t even a useful lie. By making it his lead-off attack, Risch distracted attention from the Biden administration’s botched pullout from Afghanistan, a serious matter. Instead, Risch used the forum to portray Biden as senile, based on rubbish.)

The story begins with the White House’s Monday press schedule, which announced that Biden would receive a wildfire briefing in Boise. The press coverage was listed as “out-of-town pool spray at the top.” In English, this means that a group of the traveling White House press corps is admitted to the event at the beginning and then brought out after journalists get some video and audio. It’s a routine practice presidents have used for decades. And that’s exactly what happened Monday. According to the pool report, the group was escorted in at 12:08 p.m. for the start of the briefing and “escorted out at roughly 12:35” — a relatively long spray.

That would have been the end of the matter, except that somebody in the research department at the RNC, watching the White House’s livestream, decided that something nefarious had happened. “White House feed cuts out as Biden starts to ask a question,” the RNC tweeted.

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, crediting the RNC for the scoop, published an article under the headline, “White House livestream cuts Biden mid-sentence as he goes off script.”

“An official White House livestream of President Biden’s remarks was abruptly cut off mid-sentence on Monday,” it began, linking Monday’s “incident” to White House officials’ “fear he’ll veer wildly off-message.”

All that was left was for Risch to trumpet the fabrication — and then to demand to know why Blinken was “unaware this is actually happening.”

Had Risch been duped, or was he deliberately parroting disinformation? I explained to Risch’s aides what had actually happened and asked whether there would be a clarification. There would not be. “Who cut off the president? Please advise,” repeated Risch spokeswoman Suzanne Wrasse.

So Risch knows the facts but perpetuates the fiction. If only somebody could “press the button” and cut off the GOP lie machine before it destroys us all.

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon-jeffrey-epstein/View attachment 4986478

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/14/risch-blinken-hearing-questions-republican-lie/View attachment 4987972

The GQP must be so proud too that they have Putin's propaganda channel pushing their big lies still.
View attachment 4987982

The RNC came up with the lie, Rupert Murdock's NYPost writes it up, and the Republicans use their senate seat to spread the lie that it is 'widely reported'. Then it can be pushed around the internet in videos like the one by Russian times (RT), and then can be used by trolls as 'proof'.

Click to expand...

schuylaar said:

which Americans?

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

Looks like the ones in the RNC.

Click to expand...

schuylaar said:

so bogus. the issue is, tech came on so swiftly; it's like giving a baby a loaded gun. this monster has been created..we can't seem to put this genie back into the bottle..i remember a time when you just moved on from losing an election..candidate and citizen, we moved on didn't we? this fvcker is such a psycho and he needs to be deactivated..put in it's own folder..uninstalled..just tell me what..what to do to get rid of it.

Click to expand...

Republican candidate for governor of Arizona Kari Lake was seen having dinner with a top QAnon operator this week.

Ron Watkins, who calls himself CodeMonkeyZ, shared the news on the social media platform Telegram.

"Just had dinner with Kari Lake, the next Governor of Arizona," Watkins wrote on Tuesday. "She inspires me with her tenacity and willingness to lead the fight to take back Arizona from do-nothing RINOs."

Lake is a former newscaster who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump in her race for governor.

According to Vice, Watkins is a longtime QAnon activist who started a website about aliens. He was also a featured speaker at Mike Lindell's Cyber Symposium. Many believe that Watkins is the man behind the QAnon movement.

Both Lake and Watkins have been vocal about the fact that they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. No court has found those claims to be true.

Click to expand...

The Republican Party of Texas appears poised to significantly alter its party platform as it holds its convention in Houston.

Sewell Chan, the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, reported from the convention.

"The party’s 2020 platform was *relatively* more moderate and economy-focused, after TX D’s made gains in 2018 statehouse races and w an unpopular Trump in the WH. Two years later, culture war issues and condemnation of Biden are at the forefront," he explained in a Twitter thread. "Right now convention delegates are debating a plank in the platform that calls homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in 2018 and 2020."

He described how the debate played out.

"One delegate, David Gebhart, said the provision 'does no benefit to the party' and calls for softening the language: 'We are the Republican Party of Texas, not the Westboro Baptist Church.' Mix of laughter and boos," Chan reported. "Another delegate, Nate Criswell, says weakening the homosexuality language would be caving to political correctness. 'People appreciate calling a spade a spade.' A third delegate mentions dildos and fisting before she is cut off."

"On a voice vote, a motion to amend the homosexuality plank fails. Language calling it 'an abnormal lifestyle choice' remains," he reported.

The Texas GOP blocked Log Cabin Republicans from having a booth at the convention.

"Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice," the plank says. "We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. No one should be granted special legal status based on their LGBTQ+ identification."

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-gop-lgbtq-homosexuality/View attachment 5151464

Click to expand...

DIY-HP-LED said:

The republicans depend on tribalism, hence the culture wars, for tribalism to work effectively they need an enemy, an "other". Black people are no longer enough and they can't be explicit enough about racism, so they need LBGTQ people or foreign invasions by brown people. The need to give the base a feeling it is under siege by "others", these people are being manipulated by con artists, their "enemies list has expanded. Immigrants these days are mostly brown, so add them to the list and shut down immigration, even if it harms the country, cause, "they is taken over"! Trump revealed them for what they are and what really motivates them deep down inside, underneath the rationalizations and mealy mouthed bullshit they spout.

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

Although the Republicans can just micro target the really vile shit that particular person won't be offended by. That frees them up to be a little less explicit on the national stage.

Click to expand...